Our Questions
by Jack Manson
Summary: We grow. We Learn. We Die. Oneshot


Why

By Jack Manson

A/N: Yeah, so, this is basically just a very lame, quick-written one shot. I don't know if anyone will read it or not, but if you do, please leave me the feedback and such.

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Why?

That was the one word, the one question, that Dib had asked himself over and over again since he had been in elementary school. That twelve-year-old boy in Ms. Bitters' class with the abnormally large head, whom had been the self-proclaimed protector of Earth, and from _what_? A little green alien who had been nothing less than an inconceivable idiot? The red-eyed E.T. who thought he was on a secret mission to destroy the planet, while he really had just been shoved to the side worthlessly so he wouldn't mess up his people's plan for galactic conquest? Was that Earth's real threat?

Back then, everything had been so easy. Dib had always been a genius, but the lack of acknowledgment he received from his family, his teachers, and his classmates, had caused him to become quite arrogant. The young Dib had always spoken to himself, claiming that the _rest_ of the world was blind to _his_ intelligence.

And it was true. Dib _was_ a clever bastard. But even still, when he was younger, protecting Earth had been so simple. If that little green alien happened to conjure up some bizarre scheme to destroy the world, Dib had always been there to flip off the switch, or pull out the power cord.

When you're that young, everything is easy.

But things started to change once Dib reached high school. They changed so fast he had trouble breathing sometimes, and other times, he wasn't quite sure if he had as much of a grip on reality as he thought. Had his father ignored him because he really thought he was a crazed individual, or had he done so because simple he still only regarded Dib as a child? Had his teachers done the same? What about his sister? Or his classmates? Back then they were only children as well, so was it really that they had not believed him, or was it because they were told not to?

In fact, Dib thought things started to change once he hit puberty, and not precisely when he entered high school. Like most boys, Dib started to see the world in a whole new light. Women and girls were no longer just pretty...they were arousing. The thing was, Dib was still trying to kep his eyes on Zim, and natural growth was doing nothing more than clouding his vision.

And Gaz, she grew up. Dib never noticed before, but a lot of boys were interested in his sister, and sometimes he heard what they said about her behind her back. They were terrible things, things that he never dreamed any man could say about a girl, and he wasn't sure how to react. Physically, his fists would tighten and his teeth would grind together. But emotionally, he wasn't so certain. Of course it angered him, but never before had Dib ever considered himself a protective older brother. He often wanted to tell Gaz about what those guys said about her, but he knew his sister too well.

"Go away, Dib," that was what she would have said had he said anything to her. And those three words meant something much more colossal. They meant, "Dib, don't you dare try to be my protector, too. I can take care of myself, and I can make my own decisions."

So he was stranded on the island between the ocean of life and the sea duty. On top of making sure Zim wasn't planning a new doomsday device of some sort, or trying to warn his sister about the predetory natures of the older boys in their school, or trying to impress girls his own age, Dib was starting to learn.

That one question started to curl it's way into his mind more often than it ever had before. Occasionally, as a child, he would ask himself, why? Why bother? Why try to save this Earth?

But now they came almost hourly.

If he was walking home from school, and he saw some older kids beating up on a younger one from the middle school, Dib would stop, and stare. He would ask himself, why should I help this kid out? How do I know he doesn't deserve what he's getting?

Sometimes, but not always, Dib _would_ interfere. He'd loom over their backs and tell the older kids, who were still younger than him, to get lost or else he'd call the cops. They'd run away, because by this time, Dib's appearance was more menacing than it was childish, and the kid he aided would wipe the blood from his nose or lip and glare at his savior.

He'd say, "I didn't need your help you fucking faggot."

Dib would simply readjust his glasses on his face and move along.

When Dib entered his junior year of high school, his father had been diagnosed with cancer. And although one night at the hospital he saw Gaz tear up for the first time in what seemed like forever, he couldn't seem to find it in himself to feel at all sad. If his father died within the month, or two months, as was predicted, Dib honestly could not see himself feeling a single shred of sadness.

Why should he care about his father, when he had never cared about his son?

And all the while, at the back of his life, watching him always like a hawk, as he had always done to him, was an alien.

Zim was not human, so he never understood the sudden eruption that occurred within a child human's life when they reached the age of thirteen or so. He did not understand why some of his male classmates would ask him if he would "fuck" that girl or "bang" another. He knew what the words meant, of course, but never in a thousand years would he consider either of them to be used in that form or context.

Procreation amongst the Irkens was much, much different than amongst the humans.

Over the years, Zim had grown in his own way. He had grown as humans do, in height, most surprisingly, but was still not yet as tall as his Tallest.

And, he had grown to become an Invader.

As old as he had been when he tried to pass of as a human child, Zim had come to reach what the Irken's called adulthood. If he had not yet been fully aware of the terms of his mission from the time he had been given it, he was now. Zim was hardly a fool, anymore, as how Dib was hardly a child.

And this is what had brought them both to this sheer moment. This moment in which both of their destinies had finally collided, and their paths came to a final, binding climax.

The Tallest stood a top a ravine edge overlooking the metropolis where Dib had lived all his life in heart-wrenching solitude.

The Irken leaders were laughing terribly, cawing at their Armada's destruction of the city. It had been stop one, for the galactic superior race, and they were now toying with the humans that were left of the burning ruins below. They were testing them, playing with the first experiments of the human race. They were witnessing the limits of human endurance, and besides them, a face of solemnity and uncertainty, was Zim.

"Wait, wait, wait," one of the leaders said, hiding his laughter behind his forearm hysterically. He turned to the purple one, "I've got one, tell the humans they can survive with their planet if they kill one of the members of their group."

The purple Tallest looked to Zim with a sadistic smile, "yes, Zim, instruct them to do so, and we will choose their target. You know their language better than we do."

Zim did relay the instructions to the small group of survivors, one of which was his own nemesis, Dib, who was in the back of the swarm of people, staring down the mountain at the first signs of human destruction. The alien watched with half indifference the look of pure terror that spread across the human faces before him.

And the leaders of the Irken empire stretched out their hands and pointed to a human female. She was slim, and young, and had an expression of near eternal loathing on her face they found most interesting.

There was a moment of the briefest silence, which was soon broken by the sudden containment of Gaz by her own race, and the cry of outrage from her brother, who was fighting his way through the crowd to aid his sister.

Gaz did not look scared, but instead she looked furious. She shouted at the others to let her go, to stop touching her, but her voice was suddenly silenced when she was suddenly throw from them and into the space between themselves and the Irken soldiers stationed at the top of the cliff.

Dib fought to reach her in time, but out of the dimming silence there was the crack of a human gun, hidden somewhere in the small group of survivors, and a fountain of blood as Gaz fell to the ground, her chest a stain of red against her black dress.

The Tallest let out a cry of laughter as Dib fell to his knees besides his sister's lifeless body. If he had any intention of trying to stop the Invaders now, it was lost in a fresh swarm of agony at himself.

His weakness.

The laughter of the Tallest died after a moment, and somewhere in the whistle of the wind and the sound of explosions from below, Dib heard them give an order to their most prized soldier at their side.

"Zim, isn't that the human child who kept sabotaging your mission when you were still an idiot?" One of them asked. Dib couldn't tell the differences between their voices anymore.

There was a long pause, and Zim's voice came as a wicked strike, "yes, it is."

"Well then, go ahead and shoot him, if you'd like." They offered.

Why?

That was the one word, the one question, that floated through Dib's head as he held tightly to the cold hand of his sister. He felt like he should have started to cry, but his eyes and cheeks were as dry at the desert.

Why had he ever bothered to try and save these barbarians he and the rest of the galaxy called humans? Why did he have to bear being one of them himself? Why had they been blind, when he had seen everything? All the lies, the paranormal, the disguised?

Why had he ever even bothered?

"Look up at me, Dib." Zim ordered.

He did so, slowly, looking through his round glasses at the alien towering before him, the barrel of his Irken pistol aimed directly at his forehead. From his angle, and the dark skies behind him, and the wretched, angry expression on his green face, Dib couldn't think of anyone in the world at that moment who looked more dangerous and threatening than Zim.

Little Zim, how he grew. Dib never noticed until recently, but he was what he had always said he was, but never lived up to. At that precise moment, Zim was an invader, and it didn't matter what job he was technically assigned to for the empire, or what the Tallest truly thought of him. He was an invader, and he had successfully invaded planet Earth. Dib's home. Dib's filthy, mindless, barbaric home.

"Anything left to say?" He asked.

Dib's eyes shut close and he looked back at the corpse of Gaz. Yes, he did indeed have something left to say.

"You win, Zim."

Why?

Why bother?

Why _ever_ bother?

Dib heard the spark of an Irken gunshot, but he never felt the bullet go through his mind, cracking his skull and shredding his brain. Ah yes, his brain, the only advantage he had ever had against Zim when they were younger.

And, with the help of some maturity and adolescence, and, of course, a speeding bullet at point-blank range, that advantage was no more.

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End file.
